We are pleased to announce additional images from Hierophanies by Bear Kirkpatrick now on the Photographer's Showcase. Three photographs from this series are included in our current exhibition, The Nude — Classical, Cultural, Contemporary.

The Greek word "hierophany" translates to "reveal the sacred" and Bear Kirkpatrick has managed to do just that. He masterfully illustrates the fine line between myth and reality, the sacred and the profane, life and death. Kirkpatrick explains it was "an attempt to bring out liminal states out of people by placing them naked in wild locations, running them quickly through several narratives to prevent self-reflection or conscious posing, and shooting as many images as possible in a 20 minute span before the light became too dark see."

VERVE Gallery of Photography, in collaboration with photo-eye Bookstore and Photolucida presents a book signing for Gallery Artist Jennifer B Hudson's new publication, Medic. This event will take place at photo-eye Bookstore on Friday, March 1, 5-7pm and the artist will be present.

As part of Photolucida's Critical Mass 2011, Jennifer B Hudson was awarded the prestigious monograph award and Photolucida published Jennifer's book Medic. Over 200 jurors participate in Critical Mass, the juror pool comprised of 200 international photography curators, gallery owners, museum directors, publishers, and editors.

Medic is a snapshot of physically or spiritually ill humans and their relationships with themselves and others in times of need — the images are metaphors exploring introspection, empathy and compassion. Jennifer Hudson explains:

"The work began wholly on one sentence whispered by my husband while we endured a deeply unsettling time together. He held my hand, lay close to me and said softly, "I just wish I could take the pain from your body, and put it into mine." I have been fortunate to know incredible love all my life, but at that moment I became suddenly and intensely aware of the magnificent power that exists between people who care for one another. When I was anxious and fighting to fall asleep each night, I began to invent miracle machines; contraptions that heal, deliver hope, legacy, remedy, and redemption. Each image from Medic is a thoughtful invention, strange and tender, revealing facets of the delicate human heart... In the making of this work, I sought to begin to understand some of the most rare and beautiful relationships in the world, to expose their most frail, vulnerable moments, times of great intensity, and most cherished inner workings."

Perhaps no photographer has captured the poetry of modern urban life more brilliantly than André Kertész, and nowhere does he bring more poignant meaning to his own admonition, "to give meaning to everything," than in the splendid Day of Paris, one of the undisputed mid-century classics! Up this week: a sweet copy in the very scarce dust jacket. Along with Kertész's crystalline vision of 20s & 30s Paris, pre-war, Bauhaus-inspired Modernism is represented by the fantastic facsimile reprint of Moi Ver's Paris as well as the important Czech title, Photography Sees the Surface (Fotografie vidí Povrch), a collaboration between Ladislav Sutnar & Jaromir Funke. Also on the block: limited editions from Bernd & Hilla Becher; Elger Esser; Herb Ritts and Don Hong-Oai; elusive books by Jitka Hanzlova; Blossfeldt's Art Forms in Nature and MUCH MORE! Be sure to check out Eric's weekly presentation, where he opines about some of this week's offerings! As always, thanks for looking!!

photo-eye is please to be selling books at booth 26 at the exhibition fair of the 2013 Society for Photographic Education national conference March 7-10 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. While this year's conference is already completely sold out, the public is welcome to visit the exhibition fair where photo-eye will have a variety of great photobook titles on hand and will also be conducting a number of book signings.

For those not in Chicago, we are also opening up back orders for signed copies of the books listed above. If you're interested in purchasing a signed copy of one of these books, please email Melanie — quantities are limited and will likely sell out quickly. For those in Chicago, we hope you'll stop by to browse the selection and say hello to Rixon, Vicki and Melanie.

"Nic Nicosia truly understands, nay passionately embraces, the artifice of the image and the fact that photography is a hybrid medium. It's not motion picture, but it does tell a story through narrative in time and space. In this case, the stories are more short staccato forms of fiction than epic novels or factual biographies depicting the drama of everyday life. It's not reality, but it is drawn from real life. The veracity of the photographic image collides with painted backdrops, stage sets, and every type of theatrical lighting imaginable, paired with everyday contemporary suburban life. So, it is no surprise to learn that Nicosia started out as a filmmaker. His photographs clearly demonstrate a life long habit to act as director of the films he creates, which in his case, are still photographs." — from Judy Natal's review of Nic Nicosia

"Though I'd read the book's description and the comments from Erik Kessels and John Gossage, who selected it as a Best Book of 2012, the contents of Found Photos in Detroit caught me off guard. We see family snapshots and awkward portraits, but the majority of the photographs were taken as evidence — images of perpetrators, victims or crime scenes. There is a sizable difference between police evidence and personal snapshots — full ranges of emotions and facial expressions are common in mug shots but seldom seen in candid portraits. Pictures of swollen faces initially intended as documents of physical harm are transformed by context; the rawness of the emotion behind the eyes becomes an inadvertent subject. We seldom see such complex emotions in photography." — from Sarah Bradley's review of Found Photos in Detroit edited by Arianna Arcara & Luca Santese

"Dirty greens, charcoal greys and dusty browns. A landscape that consists of barren brambles, rambling ivy and mutilated trees. And a family who live in the middle of all this, under a flyover in a landscape next to a swamp. These are the ingredients that won Alessandro Imbriaco the European Publisher's Prize, awarded for his book, The Garden. The Garden is set in Rome and is a progression of Imbriaco's work on the informal communities that have sprung up around Rome to house an increasing number of migrants coming in search of work." — from Colin Pantall's review of The Garden by Alessandro Imbriaco

Walker Evans: The Lost WorkGoing for as much as $140 online, we have shrink-wrapped copies available for only $65.

"Reproducing some of the most stunning and rarest of Evans' work, almost all previously unpublished, this lavishly produced volume brings to light scores of images from an artist who has been labelled the great artist of our time. Some of the rarities included are from work Evans did in Cuba, Tahiti, Maine, Chicago, England, and Nova Scotia.

The Lost Work is a wonderfully rare thing: a glimpse of the 'outtakes' of Evans'
life. This melange of public and private reveals how Evans loved anonymity and
found it behind the camera, spying on his own life. In looking at these, we too
become spies, for this collection is, ultimately, personal effects." —the publisher READ MORE

Guy Archard: Almost
"Archard's first book is an enigmatic exploration of beauty and decay both in the physical and metaphysical form. Abstracted images take the viewer on a poetic meander through relationships with loved ones past and present, accompanied by pondering day-dream fixations on everyday objects.

The book itself is bound in soft Japanese cloth, and beautifully printed on Japanese paper, with a tipped image on the front, and silver foil blocked titling on the cover and spine." —the publisher